Love your Neighbour As Yourself

Today, we are brought to think of something not many of us may have thought of. I for one never ever thought of it. In fact, it never ever crossed my mind as something worthy of thought. Here again is our main text. Drink, my lord, she said, and quickly lowered the jar to her hands and gave him a drink. Genesis 24: 18.

Picture what is happening. A stranger is drinking water from the young woman’s vessel. I do not know whether the servant of Abraham is drinking directly from her lowered water jar, or if she has a cup with her, into which she pours water for him to drink. I know for sure that there were no paper cups that she could use and quickly dispose of. These things are absolutely relevant and not in any way trivial, for it is things like these, which tell the true story about how much like our Master we are.

We are told that she quickly lowered the jar to her hands and gave him a drink. Perhaps he had his own cup, I hear you say, for he must have left with water, when he first began his journey. True, but what the Spirit is showing, is a picture of neighbourly love that goes beyond all tradition, human learning and common sense.

Indeed, I will offer you, a stranger, water, but not from any of my crystal, water glasses. By all means, it takes nothing for me to give a plate of food to one who is not of my kind, but not from my bone-China plate. This young woman of beauty and humility takes down her jar and gives a drink to the thirsty stranger. This draws me without resistance to Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan. Return to it, as found in Luke 10: 25 - 37. Let the Holy Spirit show you about loving your neighbour as yourself, in fresh, new light of His revelation.

One of the things that hit me that I never considered of importance, is what the Samaritan did to the needy stranger. Yes, he stopped, when there were others who might have wanted to do good, but were blocked by religious traditions and laws; they could not stop. Yes, he attended to the half-dead man and did all he could on the spot. However, this is what brought my hands down as it were, when I was shown the stranger on the Samaritan’s donkey. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. Luke 10: 34b. All I heard and am still hearing, is how beautiful and humble the Samaritan is. He gave the stranger his own personal donkey on which to travel. He loved his neighbour as himself. Don’t you see that girl loving Abraham’s servant as herself, even to the point of giving him to drink from her own vessel?

Now this one truly captured me and gave me a quite different sight of Jesus and the woman at the well. When Jesus, tired as He was from the journey, sat down by that well in a Samaritan town, He knew exactly where He was. When the Samaritan woman came to the well where He was sitting, He asked her, Will you give me a drink? John 4: 7. Was not Jesus Himself loving His neighbour as Himself? He, a Jew, and a Rabbi at that, showed a Samaritan woman that He loved her as a person – neither Jew nor Samaritan – for race, culture and traditions hold no sway in how He loves. He did not just ask with his Head and Heart, but He drank from her personal vessel.

I ask you, in the Name and Love of Jesus, isn’t this Beauty and Humility? Is this not the bottom line in loving our neighbour as ourselves? Love, like faith, is not just of the head but must reach the hands. To love my neighbour, I must see me in whomsoever my neighbour is, and see whomsoever my neighbour is, in me.

Receive

The picture of a stranger receiving water,

From humility that had to her jar lower,

Shows our Living Water, our thirst quencher Jesus,

Who lowered Himself so, just to feed all of us.